Every tale has an ending, the circle completed and the finale one that can be passed down as being just as riveting or exciting as the original, the one that started the quest in the first place; if not then dead men and bored but faithful audiences tell no tales, for nobody likes a sequel to be a failure.

We all reach that decision sooner or later, we find ourselves perhaps tempted by the thought of a better life, of a world in which our care free abandon can run free riot and be held by the person that our dreams desire or we can keep going, being safe, being right and knowing full well the path we have chosen is not governed by avarice and jealousy, not by the path of the bullet.

The beauty, pathos and reflection of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s writing can be seen fully in two of Britain’s greatest ever sitcoms, Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, both written with consideration and absolute wit, performed by comedic geniuses and with the knowledge that even after 60 years in the case of Hancock’s Half Hour, the words and situations are timeless, that no matter how much we move on in society, we still are products of the post Second World War generation.

There was nothing glamorous about the Krays, not in the strictest sense of the word and yet they held the East End of London in such a thrall that glamour took on a completely different meaning. It was physical allure of charm personified to an area of London that had been treated for too long as the personal plaything of the destructive and warped; so why should the Swinging Sixties be any different.

Two microphones stamped with the discerning, almost foreboding B.B.C. logo stand at the front of the stage and five perfectly placed chairs are to be seen in the background, the sense of occasion was already palpable, the sound of quite a number in the crowd already rehearsing under their breath the theme tune to perhaps the absolute master of British Comedy in the last 70 years and his sensational programme written by the only two men who could truly capture and harness his genius. This was not just any old event at the Edinburgh Fringe, this was one in which the spirit of The Lad himself, Birmingham’s Tony Hancock, was given a new voice in which to thrill the crowd all over again.

As arguably one of the finest British comedies to grace both radio and television celebrates the 60th Anniversary of the first episode, The First Night Party, being aired to the nation; Hancock’s Half Hour has suffered from the short sightedness of the time that many programmes and serials had placed upon them, the constraints of not being recorded and documented for future posterity.